The present invention relates to a precurled mitten, and more particularly to such a mitten to grip a rod, e.g. a wind surfing sail boom, having a permanently curved hook portion and opposed thumb portion following the natural, relaxed contour of the user's curled hand to receive the first four fingers and thumb, respectively, and defining a lateral bore space therebetween to receive and snugly embrace the rod independently of finger force and to facilitate its gripping under unrestrained and thereby reduced finger force, the mitten being formed of waterproof, thermally insulating, shape retaining, pliable sheeting to transmit, substantially undiminished, hand exerted gripping force therethrough to the rod in the bore space.
Many sporting and recreational glove constructions are known, but each is designed for a very specific purpose.
Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,698 to Angas shows a flexible five fingered hockey glove, with the five individual finger cavities protected by padding on their back sides interrupted by cross grooves at the finger joints for full finger cavity flexing.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,096 to Lim shows a flexible five fingered motorcycle glove, with a curved attachment on its back side extending to the tips of the individual cavities for the first four fingers, to curve the hand to avoid stiffening and cramps on gripping the handle bars, the thumb cavity being unmodified and the construction allowing finger cavity flexing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,870 to Roth shows a wind surfing harness extending across the back of the shoulders and arms, and having hand holdable rigid hooks or flexible five fingered gloves on its ends. The hooks are curved to grip a sail boom of a wind surfing board, and the gloves have hook catch and pile engaging means, such as sold under the trademark VELCRO, on the thumb pad and first two finger nail sides of the finger cavities to connect the thumb cavity to those of the first two fingers to surround and grip the boom by the gloved hands, to control the boom via the hooks or gloves as the user stands on the board.
In Roth, the hands can quickly release the hooks from the boom for safe escape of the user from the board, as the hands do not tire in use since the hooks grip the boom and detach from it easily. However, the gloves do not quickly release from the boom due to the hook catch and pile immobile connection of the thumb and first two finger cavities surrounding and gripping the boom. This subjects the user to a danger intensified after the hands tire on being cramped by the gloves around the boom in use, as they manually grip the boom and on tiring cannot rapidly separate that connection. The individual finger cavities of the gloves also present a large thermal loss area soon causing the fingers to become cold in cold weather.